Reflecting so far...

 After the first week of work, as I slowly make my way through the many documents I have to read and sign, the weekend gives me some chance to reflect on the tasks and skills gained, and reflect on what I am learning.

I have run organisations before, and reasonable ones too - be it the university English Society, my old school's charity arm, or magazine editorial sections, and getting an insight into the organisational structure of Skimstone is giving me plenty of chances to reflect. 

Skimstone is split into a few key artistic groups. The Young Artists Collective (YAC) works for young artists, a few of whom have gone on into ECHO. These two schemes run well, under the guidance of the management team. ECHO artists support other artists within Skimstone too, and some are involved in the management team collecting feedback and running YAC events too. This has bred a great family feel to the organisation, and it all feels very communal and relaxed. This seems it will work well. It also allows artists to work together in small groups away from management, a little like study groups at university. Giving individual responsibility to artists helps tie them in to a sense of ownership.

Peter has made clear that, while of course I still need to learn how things work, and get to know everyone in the company, he is also happy for me to be more proactive in making recommendations for the media channels. Obviously I have run Instagram and Facebook pages before, so I have plenty of ideas as to what will work, but I am also deciding to research better Instagram strategies to recommend and report back with too. 

Researching similar arts companies like Helix Arts, Company of Others and even Live Theatre's social media channels is very similar to researching similar sources in my degree - like trawling the ECCO database in Eighteenth Century Studies for example! It also lets me draw out the key similarities, and then rank them in effectiveness too (in different elements). I hope, for example, to take some of the aesthetic of the grid that some channels have, and pastiche the interactivity of others. 

My biggest area to make recommendations on so far is in the Facebook page - or rather pageS. While I'm most specialised on Instagram (having not run a Facebook page in a couple of years), the most glaring room for improvement is in streamlining the two pages (that split audience), into one that is more focussed.

Reading the fire safety information for the main building makes me hope I can be there soon! Most of all though it's great to be finally starting, after my start was delayed to allow the last project to finish first.